Saturday, March 31, 2012

A group of Chadian passport holders stand against the wall following their arrest on March 29, 2012 at a detention centre in the southern desert town of Sabha, where three days of clashes between Toubou and Arab tribes have killed more than 70 people, according to the Libyan government. The Toubou are black oasis farmers by tradition who also have connections beyond Libya's borders as they live in southern Libya, northern Chad and in Niger, but they have previously denied having separatist ambitions. (Getty Images)

"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."
~George Orwell

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Six days of tribal clashes in a remote desert town in southern Libya have killed 147 people, the country's health minister said Saturday.

Fatma al-Hamroush said in a press conference in Tripoli that the fighting in Sabha has also left 395 wounded. Around 180 people have been transported to the capital Tripoli for emergency treatment, she said. [...]

TRIPOLI (Middle East Online) - The head of Libya's Toubou tribe on Friday called for international intervention to halt what he called the "ethnic cleansing" of his people after deadly clashes in the southern oasis of Sabha.

"We demand that the United Nations and European Union intervene to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Toubou," said Issa Abdel Majid Mansur, a former opposition activist against the ousted regime of slain leader Moamer Gathafi.

He accused Arab tribes in Sabha of bombarding a power station providing electricity to several parts of southern Libya including Qatrun and Morzuk, both areas with a strong Toubou presence.

Telecommunications were also cut off, Mansur said, and added that "several" members of his tribe were killed on Friday.

Mohammed al-Sawal, the national security chief in Sabha, confirmed to television channel Libya Al-Ahrar that the power station had been hit. [...]

The Toubou say they are defending themselves against attack by Arab tribesmen in the region, and have accused the Libyan authorities of backing those gunmen as part of a campaign of "ethnic cleansing."

The Toubou are black oasis farmers by tradition who also have connections beyond Libya's borders. They live in southern Libya, northern Chad and in Niger, and have previously denied having separatist ambitions.